Richmond II: Ragan - Friday media visit

There are four Ford drivers competing for spots in the
12-driver Chase for the Sprint Cup field this weekend at Richmond
International Raceway. Carl Edwards (2nd) has already clinched while
Greg Biffle (6th) just has to start in order...

There are four Ford drivers competing for spots in the
12-driver Chase for the Sprint Cup field this weekend at Richmond
International Raceway. Carl Edwards (2nd) has already clinched while
Greg Biffle (6th) just has to start in order to lock up his position.
Matt Kenseth (9th) and David Ragan (13th) are also trying to secure a
spot. All four drivers held Q&A sessions Friday at the speedway.

DAVID RAGAN -- No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion

YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE
RACE? "Certainly we're excited to be in this opportunity to
have a shot for the chase. That's what our goals were at the
beginning of the year, just to be able to have a shot at Richmond to make
the chase. It would be great if we were in the top 12 locked in, but
we're not. We're outside trying to fight our way in and 17
points is better than 25 points, but it's not as good as five
points, so it should be an exciting race tomorrow night. If I had to
pick any track to go to, Richmond would probably be in the top two or
three choices, so it's a perfect situation for us to go out and try
to be the heroes of the weekend. If we make the chase, it'll be
great, but if we don't make the chase, we've still got 10
races to go to try win some races and finish up strong in points. So
I'm looking forward to tomorrow night's race and I think so
far, so good. Our AAA Ford was pretty good. We unloaded fast and
we'll see what happens here in qualifying."

DO YOU AGREE
THAT CLINT AND KASEY HAVE MORE PRESSURE THAN YOU IN THIS RACE?
"Yes, some of that is accurate. I'd say that we are
definitely just happy to be in this position, but we have put some
pressure on ourselves to try to make some good things happen. I put a
lot of pressure on myself last week to try to run a little better than we
did, but I think the pressure is probably on Clint more than anybody
because it's his spot to lose and it's ours to gain. We all
have a lot of pressure on us to go out and get the job done and try to
get in the chase, but, yeah, I can imagine that there's probably a
little more pressure on Clint not to mess up. We can go out and just
race as hard as we can and whatever happens happens."

DO YOU FEEL
LIKE THE KICKER NOBODY WANTS TO TALK TO WITH TWO SECONDS LEFT IN THE
GAME? "Yes and no. It's a deal where it's certainly
riding on our shoulders, but it's not to that point yet. If you
were to ask me that question before I sat down in the car before
tomorrow's green flag run and started to go, it might be a little
different, but we've still got a lot of racing with the Nationwide
race tonight and qualifying and 400 laps tomorrow. I've tried not
to put a lot of pressure on myself. Certainly, if we make the chase
it's not gonna be because we had a good race at Richmond,
it's gonna be because we were pretty solid all year. If we
don't make the chase, it's gonna be because we made some
mistakes throughout the year. So Richmond, it's an important race,
but it's not the only race of the year we're gonna look at
and say, 'Hey, this is the race whether we're in or
out.' I'm just trying to go out and not put a lot of
pressure on myself. Certainly we'll be a little more cautious at
times and pay attention to the details, but I'm not putting that
kind of pressure on just this one race."

ARE YOU GOING TO
WEATHER.COM? "I just left my motorhome and that's what was
on the internet, so I was watching it before coming back here. I pay
attention to what's going on and trying to be aware of what's
happening so I can make a better plan, but, ultimately, it's the
same situation for everybody. We all had the same amount of practice
this afternoon. We're all gonna have the same opportunity to
qualify, whether it rains or not, and we're all gonna have the same
ideas going into tomorrow night, but I think just from my limited
knowledge and studying the internet radar, I think we'll be fine.
Maybe not for qualifying, but definitely for tomorrow night."

WOULD YOU BENEFIT MORE FOR NEXT YEAR BY NOT MAKING THE CHASE AND HAVING
THOSE LAST 10 RACES TO PROGRESS? "I think where we're at,
we're not a championship-caliber team now. No matter how good we
run tonight, and if we make the chase, no matter how excited we are, the
bottom line at the end of the day you can't win the championship
without winning some races and you can't win without getting a lot
of top fives and leading a lot of laps and we're not quite there
yet and I think we know that. We've still got a ways to go and I
think that would be the mentality we would take in the chase. We
wouldn't necessarily be looking at that championship role and I
think it's a little far-fetched from where we stand today. Now a
lot of things can happen between now and the end of the year and then
we'd say, 'Yeah, I think we've got a shot at the
championship,' but as we stand right here today, we've got a
top 10 to a top 12 to 14 team and that's what we've got.

"We've still got to win some
races and we've got to slowly progress into a better more
consistent faster team, but I don't think the championship --
it would be in the back of our minds, but it wouldn't be the main
objective out of these last 10 races."

IN A SENSE WHAT HAPPENS
DEPENDS ON HOW IT GOES -- EITHER CONSISTENCY OR WINNING.
"Yeah, I agree with you. You look at our team over the last month
and a half and we've been really consistently a top 10 car, and I
think that's what gets you in the chase. Certainly we'd all
like to think that the Sprint Cup champion is gonna be a person that can
go out and win some races this final 10 stretch, and looking at the way
Carl and Kyle are kind of not necessarily in a league of their own, but
running pretty good with each other -- head and shoulders above
everybody just about -- I think that they're gonna win some
races and it's gonna be a battle. But as you pointed out, guys
that were consistently fast and didn't have that one bad race can
win and, like I said, it would be in the back of our minds, but we would
just try to keep the same mindset -- trying to get top 10s and
that's how we learned to get experience, but it's real
important to try to win one of these things this year, too."

HOW
MUCH HAS JIMMY FENNIG HELPED YOU STAY CALM? "I think it's
our personalities. I don't want to say we're laid back, but
we want to act like we belong here. If we were to show up at Richmond
and be so excited and talking a big game like we've never been here
before, that wouldn't be the right direction to head, and certainly
Jimmy does have experience. He's been here and done this several
times, so he knows what to expect around the next corner. We've
got a fairly young team -- our AAA group that's over the wall
and our team crew -- we're all pretty young so this is the
first time we've experienced anything like this and we just all
want to act like we deserve to be here and it's just another race
weekend with a little more importance and a little more photographers
around the car and just try to go out and do the best we can."

WHAT ADVICE HAS JIMMY GIVEN YOU ABOUT THE RACE? "Still be pretty
aggressive. We hadn't talked specifically about our game plan and
what we have to do, but he made it clear that we're not gonna go
out and just take it easy all night trying not to do anything stupid.
We're gonna be aggressive and run like this is the first race of
the chase running as hard as we can trying to win the thing, so I think
he just wanted to make it clear to the guys that he's not gonna be
passive with the setup. We're gonna be aggressive with everything,
trying to get all we can get, but we want to make sure we don't lay
down a little bit too much because I feel the other two cars are gonna go
out and do the same thing -- be as aggressive as they can be. This
is a deal where one race is determining everything, but you don't
want to leave this race at Richmond and Sunday morning you say,
'Man, if I could have been a little more aggressive here. If we
would have had this in, we might have had a better result.' So we
want to give all we can give and at the end of the night we'll say
we did the best we could do and that's all there is to say about
it."